Topic: Rødes new SC6-L Mobile Interview Kit

[justme]

The new Røde Interview Kit for iOS with two 3.5mm mic input, headphone out and lightning connector might not have the best dynamic range but for its size it might be a pretty ok stealthy setup.

https://www.rode.com/microphones/sc6-lik

[heathen]

I wonder if one could use a battery box or small pre with an adapter cable that breaks out to two minis, and then plug each of those into this Rode thingy?

[justme]

Details are sparse but it says you can adjust gain on the input at least.

Hopefully there will be some modding opportunities for the input stage.

[jerryfreak]

odd that its lightning/digi in but only 69 db signal to noise ratio? thats quite a bit lower than most decent mics agreed that its probably a crappy gain stage but maybe it can be bypassed altogether

interesting these rode smartlav mics are trrs - they are obviously 3 wire... as is a schoeps CMR which only needs 1mA@ 5V.... this might be able to power them.. though it looks like the smartlav mics themselves only get 2.7V when plugged into an  apple analog jack, and probably the same from the SC6-L

according to this page (not sure how old it is or what model iphone it references), the iphone trrs puts out 1.5V (pretty standard for plug in power mics, no?

regardless it seems this is a good stereo line in option if we can get over the noise floor

[scottE]

Wow that looks very promising especially now with the 2 channel - stereo option.

Here is a short video with more info https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfn01O6zV5g

[RTD]

would it run with two DPA 4060?

[jerryfreak]

if youve already got 4060s just spring for a d:vice

[RTD]

sure, but this is also a question of budget.

[scottE]

sure, but this is also a question of budget.

Yes indeed! Not every taper has an unlimited budget.

Also if this kit works fine it may help new tapers with only an Iphone to get into recording concerts we all wanna hear

[jerryfreak]

sure, but this is also a question of budget.

Yes indeed! Not every taper has an unlimited budget.

Also if this kit works fine it may help new tapers with only an Iphone to get into recording concerts we all wanna hear

see ambeo thread, if you already have an iphone its a $200 investment and you get noise cancelling headphones you can use when not taping

[scottE]

So still interested to hear if someone has got this set and recorded any shows with this SC6-L Mobile Interview Kit ?

Also any ideas if would it be possible to connect SP-SPSB-6 microphones to this SC6-L or what kind of connector would it need to connect 3,5mm stereo to this SC6-L?

[jerryfreak]

i just grabbed one of these to test. puts out 2.25V on the sleeve of the TRRS jacks so doesnt seem super useful for powering most decent lavs. i think there are some church mics that run on voltage that low that might be a match

i got the interface only, not the rode 'smartlavs' which are decent but a little low on the max spl for my tastes

ill do some noise measurements on it later

apogee metarecorder recognizes the device and has full range of gain available

[ycoop]

i just grabbed one of these to test. puts out 2.25V on the sleeve of the TRRS jacks so doesnt seem super useful for powering most decent lavs. i think there are some church mics that run on voltage that low that might be a match

i got the interface only, not the rode 'smartlavs' which are decent but a little low on the max spl for my tastes

ill do some noise measurements on it later

apogee metarecorder recognizes the device and has full range of gain available

Would have been mighty surprised if this thing could put out enough voltage to adequately power anything we use. Still looks potentially useful as a deck after a small preamp.

[jerryfreak]

ok so the only input is thru the powered mic in. i used a 10uF cap to block power. input is mic level and sensitive,  likely to match the smartlav+ mic output (which is almost identical to a 4060). input might overload easily, i had the levels pretty far down. would have to experiment with some different mics. i wonder how the 3V 4063s would do at 2.25V?


TRRS:
tip-no connection
ring-no connection
ring-ground
sleeve-mic in

id say for a mic-in its pretty adequate for our purposes
I played 2 Beck tracks out of my DAC1s headphone output with a 1 minute silent track in between.
i peaked levels at -4 dB in metarecorder, when peaks normalized to 0dB, the noise in the silent track was really low, -85dB RMS, on par with any handheld ive seen and right there with the d:vice (both using cheap caps)

seems like a good option for iphone recording, ill get some good TRRS cables and make a stereo pair

here is that Beck track i recorded if you want to hear how it sounds. i had to cut off the beginning of the track to prevent it from getting pulled for copyright. so its the end of one track and beginning of another with the 1 minute silence in there

https://soundcloud.com/user-498275808/beck-sc6-l-edit

 

[scottE]

Wow ! Very good sound quality.

What microphones did you record this with?

[jerryfreak]

thats just a line-in test at typical mic-in levels

[inoutoffocus]

killer you doing the leg work jamie. fwiw most peeps mics here they want to use have a trs connector, the rode has 2 trrs connections, so you need another splitter just to run mics with it. That's 2 long ass splitters. If you have a battery
box and don't need phone to power mics, I'd go with the sonic port 6, it's only one box, takes a line in stereo mini input and is usb powered. Another option which I haven't tried yet, but would be easiest to me it seems, is apple camera adapter. It's a lighting to usb cable (usb lets it record in stereo), then take any usb into it. Should provide 5v usb standard power perfect for small mics. Many cables made now days that go into usb. I've know usb mics can be pwered through a usb hub and feed this way into the camera adapter. I think lighting > usb dongle might be smallest footprint.

[jerryfreak]

That’s actually not a bad idea taking some sort of lightning cable splitter and then hacking 5 V out of the extra cable for mic power because none of these interfaces seem to put out a true 5 V to the Mics that I tried

I haven’t checked out that sonic port but if it’s what I think it is it’s a little bigger

[justme]

This is great news guys.
Thanks for trying things out.

I believe the Apple camera adapter pulls 120mA from the lighting and then restrict the supply of power to 100mA device compliant unit.
I’ve been playing around with things to use as power injectors and as I understand it, as soon as a device announces itself as a device with higher current request then the 100mA the iOS will not connect to it. Even if it is fed from another power source.

[jerryfreak]

most mics use just a few mA. even the schoeps CMRs are 1 mA

[scottE]

Soundman now offer the SC6-L with adapter :

"This is a perfect interface for our Soundman binaural microphones.  You can record live-music and also recording in precarious situations."

http://www.soundman.de/en/boundary-layer-microphone/

[jerryfreak]

Soundman now offer the SC6-L with adapter :

"This is a perfect interface for our Soundman binaural microphones.  You can record live-music and also recording in precarious situations."

http://www.soundman.de/en/boundary-layer-microphone/

not seeing the adapter cable but its good to know that other mics can run acceptably on the 2.25 V it provides

[checht]

Interesting possibilities.I'd use it mk4s > pfa > sc6 > iPhone.
Want to make sure I understand the current state of research: I'll need a cap to decouple from the pip. Would I need resistors to attenuate the line-in level signal?

TIA

[jerryfreak]

re:caps im 99% sure all naiant products already have caps to protect against recorder pip voltage, the TB and PIP squeak did at least

nbox also does as well

it does want a low level signal tho

[checht]

thx!